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SPORTS
| UPDATED April 23
Tennis
Men, women set for SLC tournament
Members of both teams say they
feel confident in their chances of bringing home Southland Conference
titles this weekend.
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| The Shorthorn: Michael Roger |
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By Dustin
Eberhart
The Shorthorn Staff
Both the men’s and women’s tennis teams will come into
the Southland Conference Tournament this weekend with the same questions
and the same attitudes.
Coaches Patric DuBois and Christian Wassmer said their teams are
beat up but confident about the outcome of the tournament.
“We still have players who are injured, but they’re still
playing,” DuBois said. “I think we’re ready and motivated
and excited. Everyone will be ready to play.”
All tournament games will be played this weekend at the UTA Tennis
Center, with the first match starting at 9:30 a.m. Friday.
The men’s team swept the conference during the regular season
(5-0) and finished 10-10 overall. After finishing the conference
schedule, UTA played a stretch of nationally ranked teams that included
Wichita State, Oklahoma, Tulsa, Southern Methodist University and
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. UTA lost all five matches.
“We’ve lost five in a row now, but the team seems to be
fighting hard as usual,” DuBois said. “We’re up and
down, so we are going to find out if that affects us going into
the tournament.”
Junior David Corrie said losing those last five matches could boost
the other SLC teams.
“It makes it slightly tougher for us if the other teams in
the tournament get confidence from that,” he said. “We
know we’re in a position to win it (the SLC tournament), and
we know we’re the team to beat. If we play what we’re
capable of, we will win conference.”
If the women want to win a conference title, they must take a slightly
different road than the men. Unlike the men, the women don’t
have a first-round bye, which resulted from regular season losses
to UT-San Antonio and Louisiana-Monroe.
“Our health isn’t great. We have a few that are still
a bit nicked up,” Wassmer said. “To win a championship,
we’ll have to win three matches.”
Wassmer said the goals the team set at the beginning of the year
have changed as the season has gone by.
“Our minimum goal was to make it to the tournament. But in
the middle of the season it changed to winning it when we saw we
were in,” Wassmer said. “I think they are where they need
to be now and as healthy as they will be.”
The women’s team will face Northwestern State in the first
match of the tournament at 3:30 p.m. Friday. UTA beat the Lady Demons
6-1 earlier in the regular season in Natchitoches, La. Coach Wassmer
said his game plan isn’t any different.
“You don’t want to change too much in the first match,”
he said. “But also, you don’t want to take the previous
win for granted.”
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